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Amber Alert

B

beauduran

Apparently we had an Amber Alert tonight. OK, I get that. But why on Earth would both Channel 10 and Channel 12 run the Amber alert with audio airing OVER network programming at the same time. Seriously???

Tonight's Amber Alert was particularly long, almost 2 minutes in length it seemed. Fox 10 aired it toward the end of 24, completely murdering an entire scene where Jack's Dad finds him in a building. Then I saw it air again a few minutes later on 12, this time butchering the conversation between two characters on Studio 60.

Why wouldn't the stations either A. Wait until a break in programming to air it or B. Stop the programming to air the alert and resume from that point? I couldn't be more frustrated with our *FINE* local broadcasters. I have seen Amber Alerts issued in both LA and Chicago, and stations handled it with the EAS beeps and a scroll. Why was audio necessary here?
 
Beau Duran said:
Apparently we had an Amber Alert tonight. OK, I get that. But why on Earth would both Channel 10 and Channel 12 run the Amber alert with audio airing OVER network programming at the same time. Seriously???

Tonight's Amber Alert was particularly long, almost 2 minutes in length it seemed. Fox 10 aired it toward the end of 24, completely murdering an entire scene where Jack's Dad finds him in a building. Then I saw it air again a few minutes later on 12, this time butchering the conversation between two characters on Studio 60.

Why wouldn't the stations either A. Wait until a break in programming to air it or B. Stop the programming to air the alert and resume from that point? I couldn't be more frustrated with our *FINE* local broadcasters. I have seen Amber Alerts issued in both LA and Chicago, and stations handled it with the EAS beeps and a scroll. Why was audio necessary here?
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Better yet, earlier, it aired during Heroes, stopped during the commercials, and started up again when the program came back on.

Priorities are priorities, I guess.
 
I was watching Ch. 15..who did a live "breaking news" break in out of the spotset...then once the show was back on they did the tones, the info scrolling across the bottom of the screen, and the audio..over the show!
 
I TiVoed both 24 and Heroes. I watched 24 this morning and was annoyed with the Alert during a critical conversation between father and son plus the Alert seemed to go on for five minutes. I haven't seen Heroes yet.

I understand that the Amber Alert system is important and I would want it used if it was someone in my family, but they should just break into programming rather than playing over it.
 
Agreed I was so mad at Fox last night when they murdered a crucial scene in 24 to broadcast the Amber Alert. Put the programming on pause for two minutes. Come on people.
 
Funny how people complain local stations don't serve the policy "public interest, convenience, or necessity" enough and when they do, people complain even more. ::)
 
I didn't see anyone complaining about the amber alert itself; the complaint was that a long, loud, audio amber alert was broadcast over dialog. Had the amber alert been simply a scroll as other stations did, I don't believe anyone would have complained. Had the show been paused while they air the amber alert, I don't believe anyone would have complained.
 
It seems that we are just guessing what the stations have agreed to do here. Hopefully, someone with detailed knowledge of how an Amber Alert is supposed to be broadcast will chime in. I am assuming that there are agreed-upon broadcasting standards for an "Amber Alert".
 
Participation in the Amber Alert is voluntary, but most stations have agreed to do it. The alerts are operated through the EAS system, which works in conjunction with the Arizona Department of Emergency Managment utilizing DPS technology. The decision to issue an Amber Alert is up to the local police agency (in the case of this Alert it was the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office). Because in most cases, the Alert needs to be issued within a short period of the crime being reported (which didn't happen in this case, but that's another story), the decision to active the Amber Alert should be made by a supervisor-level police official on the scene of the crime (Leiutenant, Captain, etc.).

Once the Alert is activated, the broadcasters may either re-broadcast the information or run it "raw" from the police agency. So, a TV station could run the audio (which some did) or re-broadcast the same information (like Channel 15 did by breaking in with their own reporter; or they could merely run a crawl w/o audio).

What appears to have happened is that several stations (at least Fox 10 and KPNX) opted to do it "down and dirty" by running the audio rather than re-typing the information for a crawl.

Yes, it was annoying and screwed up some TV shows. I like "24" too. A crawl would be just fine, but I would rather see the stations err on the side of running something as opposed to just blowing it off. Someone's life may depend on it.
 
The amber alert audio played on Mc12 was of such poor quality, I couldn't understand half of what was being said. A crawl or a live update would have been better, in my opinion.
 
I heard on the news this morning that the abduction report may have been false, meaning that the Amber Alert was a false alarm. The mother and son were found safe in Blythe CA, just across the state line.
 
genius said:
Funny how people complain local stations don't serve the policy "public interest, convenience, or necessity" enough and when they do, people complain even more. ::)
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When they do it stupidly, yes.
 
buster2 said:
Yes, it was annoying and screwed up some TV shows. I like "24" too. A crawl would be just fine, but I would rather see the stations err on the side of running something as opposed to just blowing it off. Someone's life may depend on it.
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Then for heaven's sale, STOP THE PROGRAMMING. It's not rocket science!
 
Sorry I'm a little late on this topic, bit I am curious about something:

brian4 said:
I TiVoed both 24 and Heroes. I watched 24 this morning and was annoyed with the Alert during a critical conversation between father and son plus the Alert seemed to go on for five minutes. I haven't seen Heroes yet.
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Did anyone try closed captioning during EAS crawls and break-ins like this? Do they continue as normal, or are they pre-empted during EAS alerts and tests?
 
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